The First Time Someone Touched My Vagina

I’d always been aware of my vagina as a growing girl in spite of the few words available in isiXhosa to refer to it in a pleasant way—usisi, inhenhenhe,ikuku,umphantsi. It was functional insofar as my menstrual cycle and all other biological functions and I was happy with that. It took a boy’s curious hands to help me understand what my vagina is really about.

I was in my early teens and had been experimenting with boys in a mickey mouse kind of way, kisses and maybe touching of breasts but nothing below the waistline or anything that involved taking clothes off. In Grade 9, our Bible Education teacher at school went through the whole process and implications of exploring sexuality with boys. It was never overtly communicated, but the message was that we should never let boys use us for their gratification because males are physical and females are emotional and that is how we respond to sex. The prospect of ever enjoying what happens between a boy and a girl was simply not an option lest one should risk being labelled as “loose”(the question of homosexuality wasn’t even addressed).

It was also in my early teens that I had a chronic case of what my friends and I called “The disease to please”. Symptoms of this illness meant that the girl (me) was incapable of asserting herself at the advances of boys so any boy that showed an interest in me and made advances on me was bound to get the answer he was looking for. There had been a radical shift from the primary school girl who had been labelled as “playing hard to get” and I can’t explain how this happened. Partly curiosity and partly searching for some attention at that point in my life. This also meant I was a very early bloomer in relation to some of my friends.

I had heard about people talking of “being fingered” (in the crudest form), but no-one went into the details of how and when etc. So when the encounter happened with the boy I was somewhat shocked and unprepared. It seems dirty describing the process but dare I say, it was somewhat a pleasant surprise. The feeling of being touched and enjoying the experience meant I was one of “those girls”. I don’t remember if the boy was my “official boyfriend” or not at the time, we had met at a rugby match and I thought he was cute so I gave him my number. He called and whenever we went out we ended up kissing. He didn’t talk much which is why I’m not sure if he was my boyfriend or not.

The next step from kissing to touching was not communicated, it just happened. While we were kissing his hands managed to find their way to my vagina and I remember sitting in a position that made it easy for him to venture “down there”(reference from Vagina Monologues). Later he ventured to kissing my vagina, an even more pleasant surprise. I never realised that my vagina, that had been so insignificant before these encounters, had the possibility of evoking a good feeling. I had never been scared of what was “down there”, but the experience with this boy (and a few others later down the line) meant that I became acquainted with the silence around sexuality: the prospect that it is not infact dirty, but something that can be enjoyable.

The somewhat unsettling part about these experiences is that when girls “let” boys touch them it is a bad thing which means one is a bad girl. Seeing as I didn’t want to be a bad girl for the rest of my teenage years, my experiences with being touched were short lived and I soon learned to restrain myself, mostly by not being with boys (now men) I find remotely attractive lest they should venture “down there” and release a flood of emotion and sensations and this is taking a lot of work undoing because the reality is, I am a woman with desires that I shouldn’t be afraid of.

10 thoughts on “The First Time Someone Touched My Vagina”

great read. though ladies don’t really communicate verbally the way they feel when you get down on your knees and enjoy a strawbery ice cream, but i have seen their reactions. you have explained the feeling and emotion nicely my sista.

interesting learning about the other perspective. petros should stop spouting man hate but a good point has been brought up…. the other side of the story thanks to feminism gone wrong and conservative values shaping men is that men and boys are considered dirty molesters and rapists.

its the boys that cant be trusted around the girls. my mother is catholic and feminist…i heard more than an earful about how i had to be watched and about what men do wrong/take advantage….

school wasnt much better. in elementary i called a girl foxy lady(i heard the jimmy hendrix song on the radio). the response by the school makes me sick to my stomach looking back…. my parents were called in to have a meeting about how what i had done could be considered sexual harassment. Just to make it more clear I said it once and was over heard by a female teacher. I was not constantly pestering her…I hardly knew what it meant.

we need to stop teaching both genders the BS we do. i’ve noticed for girls it can go either way. they can learn to feel guilty over their sexual feelings or the ones that would have been self absorbed anyway can just listen to the male is the problem message and think they can do no wrong because the boys are the dangerous ones and they are the angelic gods children(over exaggeration to make a point).

the belief that females can be sexist to males seems VERY rare. after the j crew toenail incident (google fox j crew…fox is way off base) I wanted to see the reaction in real life and painted my toenails silver… several women told me to take it off. some really liked it but the funny thing was when i responded to “you should remove it” with “you should wear skirts and dresses instead of jeans” more than a few called me sexist and walked away.

neither are good outcomes and a lot end up in the middle. some girls and some boys grow up to be women and men who learn to erase the programming we received and treat each other as people in love instead of antiquated gender rolls playing their scripted parts but many never do or care to… the funny thing(in a sad way) is many are unhappy in their relationship and unsure of why.

I didnt go into depth on the male issues because I believe the media does an excellent job on that every day…about as well as it does in selling girls on the latest makeup to make them look sexy.

lets end this alarmist polar bs that turns the sexes against each other and leaves the though-full good people tied up in guilt.

I often wonder what would happen if we replaced teaching of gender rolls and guilt trips with teaching of communication, perspective taking and conflict resolution skills.

sorry for the rant… like i said it was cool hearing it from the other side, take care.